DECISION PROCESS PROBLEMS

Arun P

Jayakrishnan S R

Muhammed Faiz A P

Rahul Thakur

►Each and every day we are faced with a multitude of decisions.

►Some of these are relatively small, others are big and can have a major influence on the course of our life.

►Some decisions take time while others must be made in a split-second.

►While we employ a number of different decision-making strategies, we also often fall prey to a number of common fallacies, biases, and other decision-making errors like:1)Heuristics(Sort of Mental Shortcut)2)Overconfidence(Overestimate our own knowledge, skill or judgement)3)Hindsight Bias(Look back on same)4)Illusory Correlation

What makes decision-making effective lies mostly in the initial context setting before even entering into the decision-making discussion.

More we educate participants in the decision-making process, the more cooperative they end up being with one another during the discussion.

People not clear about their level of decision-making authority regarding the decision. This leaves participants unsure as to how committed they should be in the decision-making process.

1.

Remedy: Determine and express up front their level of decision-making authority. They need to know where they fall on the continuum of empowerment. Let them know up front what will happen with their decision(s), which:• may or may not be used as input/feedback by management in making a final

decision.• most likely will be accepted by management who reserves the right to have

the group tweak areas of concern.• will be accepted as the final decision.

The wrong or inappropriate people are sitting at the table.

2.

Remedy: At times I have facilitated meetings where the key stakeholders have sent directs or representatives in their place. This makes for adifficult discussion as the key people who will own the decision are not present. The likelihood of the follow-through by these missing people is negligible – to say the least.

People lack the right information to engage in thorough discussion of the decision options.3.

Remedy: Ensure information that will place all participants on the same page is distributed before the session for their perusal. Ensure they understand the implications of having not read the information. This means that those more informed may sway others; everyone will have to live with the results; more knowledge of decision options is equal to better quality decision, etc.

People walk into the decision-making meeting already biased on a position (personal agenda).4.

Remedy: Ensure information that will place all participants on the same page is distributed before the session for their perusal. Ensure they understand the implications of having not read the information. This means that those more informed may sway others; everyone will have to live with the results; more knowledge of decision options is equal to better quality decision, etc.

5.Unclear ‘criteria’ for determining the best decision.

Remedy:Quite often, especially during priority setting, we have the group determine key criteria to rank priorities against. Ensure that the group engages in a good debate as to what makes some criteria more important than others. It’s important that the criteria chosen supports and falls within the organizational strategy as well as the group’s particular needs. Test all participants’ knowledge of what the criteria means. Before ranking items against the criteria, ensure the group discusses thoroughly how each possible decision meets or fails the criteria.

6. Lack of sufficient time for a comprehensive discussion

Remedy:It’s quite evident that as you increase certain factors in a decision-making process, more time will be required to build a consensus. These factors typically include:the number of people involved in the discussion the complexity of the decision the degree of agreement required by all the degree of impact the decision will have on everyone (and beyond this group)Therefore, trying to facilitate a decision that is highly impactful and complex in 1.5 hours with 18 people is probably a recipe for failure. Now, don’t get me wrong, you might arrive at a decision, but I question its quality.

7. The facilitator rarely asks for feedback from the group in terms of how well the process is working

Remedy:During any decision-making discussion the facilitator is responsible for checking the type P’s. These are:1. Purpose: “are we on purpose here? Are we on target

with our discussion?2. Process: “are these discussion steps/tools effective in helping us reach our goal?” 3. Pace: “are we moving fast enough? 4. Pulse: “are people still alive?”5. Progress: ” are people seeing us making movement?”

THANK YOU!